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Israeli officials on Tuesday strongly condemned an arson attack against a mosque near Ramallah that police believe was carried out by Jewish youth.

The incident occurred in the village of Jab'a near the de facto Palestinian Authority capital of Ramallah. The mosque suffered light fire damage.

Also found was graffiti condemning the Israeli government over its decision to uproot Jewish families from a neighborhood in the nearby town of Beit El. The graffiti scrawled on the mosque walls identified the attack as a response to that decision, and promised more.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the mosque fire as the work of "intolerant and irresponsible lawbreakers," and promised to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon called the incident an act of terrorism, and said those responsible were ultimately only hurting themselves as they put a black mark on the Jewish settlement enterprise in Samaria.

The head of the settler council, Danny Dayan, agreed, and called the arson attack "immoral" and not in keeping with Jewish and Israeli ethics.

Following a similar attack last year, young religious Jewish settlers not affiliated with the so-called "price tag" movement volunteered to help clean up and repair damaged Palestinian property.

Sadly, despite the isolated nature of the incident, the strong negative outcry from most of Israel, and the fact that attacks on Jewish property and persons are a regular occurrence, Palestinian propagandists and their mainstream media allies wasted no time broadcasting the mosque fire far and wide and painting it as an example of "racist" Israeli behavior.

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